Sébastien Bourdon

French, 1616 - 1671

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French painter (1616-1671)

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Sébastien Bourdon, Esurientes pascere, 1665/1670, engraving, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1979.1.1

Esurientes pascere

Sébastien Bourdon · 1665/1670 · engraving ·  Accession ID  1979.1.1

Sébastien Bourdon, Liberare Captivos, 1665/1670, engraving, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1979.1.6

Liberare Captivos

Sébastien Bourdon · 1665/1670 · engraving ·  Accession ID  1979.1.6

Sébastien Bourdon, Sepelire mortuos, 1665/1670, engraving, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1979.1.7

Sepelire mortuos

Sébastien Bourdon · 1665/1670 · engraving ·  Accession ID  1979.1.7

Sébastien Bourdon, Hospitio exipere advenas, 1665/1670, engraving, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1979.1.3

Hospitio exipere advenas

Sébastien Bourdon · 1665/1670 · engraving ·  Accession ID  1979.1.3

Sébastien Bourdon, Vestine nudos, 1665/1670, engraving, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1979.1.4

Vestine nudos

Sébastien Bourdon · 1665/1670 · engraving ·  Accession ID  1979.1.4

Sébastien Bourdon, Aegros Curare, 1665/1670, engraving, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1979.1.5

Aegros Curare

Sébastien Bourdon · 1665/1670 · engraving ·  Accession ID  1979.1.5

Sébastien Bourdon, Potare sitientes, 1665/1670, engraving, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1979.1.2

Potare sitientes

Sébastien Bourdon · 1665/1670 · engraving ·  Accession ID  1979.1.2

Nine women and girls create a procession leading to a blond, smiling infant lying in a basket being held by a man next to a riverbank that runs across this horizontal landscape painting. The tallest woman, near the center of the retinue, wears a gold, crown-like diadem, and a toga-like gown of golden yellow over a pale, slate-blue, short-sleeved dress. She stands facing our left in profile, and looks toward the baby with dark eyes under dark, arched eyebrows. Her nose is long and straight, her pink lips are closed in a faint smile, and she has a rounded chin and jawline. Her wavy, dark blond hair is braided and pulled back, and she wears a gold earring on the ear we can see. She reaches her right arm, farther from us, straight in front of her with her palm facing the ground. Three women and three girls trail behind her in a row to our right. They wear brightly colored wraps and robes in rose pink, topaz or cobalt blue, plum purple, butter yellow, or ivory white. Most look toward the baby but the girl at the back offers the woman in front of her a tiny bouquet of flowers. Two women to our left of the standing woman stoop to reach out to the basket, held by a muscular, bare-chested, bearded man. Gray, stone blocks of a wall create steps to our left and behind it, a younger, cleanshaven man, also bare-chested, and with shoulder-length, strawberry-blond hair, reaches for his marigold-orange clothing. Trees lining the far riverbank and the brilliant blue sky with steel-gray clouds are reflected in the water’s surface. Across the river to our left, beyond a ruined stone abutment, a man in a red toga, and one in yellow, look on. More people work along the opposite bank. A city built of light gray stone stretches into the deep distance beyond.
Sébastien Bourdon, The Finding of Moses, c. 1655/1660, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.65

The Finding of Moses

Sébastien Bourdon · c. 1655/1660 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.65

Sébastien Bourdon, The Dream of Saint Joseph, 1653/1657, etching on laid paper, Gift of Alessandra Manning Dolnier, 2018.113.40

The Dream of Saint Joseph

Sébastien Bourdon · 1653/1657 · etching on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2018.113.40

Sébastien Bourdon, The Dream of Saint Joseph, 1653/1657, etching, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1975.32.1

The Dream of Saint Joseph

Sébastien Bourdon · 1653/1657 · etching ·  Accession ID  1975.32.1

Bibliography

1666

  • Félibien, André. Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes. 6 vols. 1st ed. Paris, 1666-1688 (Reprint Trévoux, 1725): 4:240-268.

1886

  • Ponsonailhe, Charles. Sébastien Bourdon, sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris, 1886.

1934

  • Sterling, Charles. Les peintres de la réalité en France XVIIe siècle. Paris, 1934: 10ff.

1954

  • Blunt, Anthony. Art and Architecture in France: 1500 to 1700. London and Baltimore, 1954: 303.

1964

  • Thuillier, Jacques, and Châtelet, Albert. French Painting from Le Nain to Fragonard. Geneva, 1964: 75-78.

2000

  • Cabane, Marie. Sébastien Bourdon: des tableaux qui one une longue histoire.... Fontenay-aux-Roses, 2000.

  • Thuillier, Jacques. Sébastien Bourdon, 1616 - 1671: catalogue critique et chronologique de l'oeuvre complet. Exh. cat. Réunion des musées nationaux and Musées de Strasbourg. Paris, 2000.

2005

  • Bornscheueer, Marion. Von der Bildbetrachtung zur Theorie der Malerei: die Kunsttheorie des Sébastien Bourdon (1616-1671). Hildesheim, 2005.

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: 39.